Sunday, March 2, 2014 – Few Alternatives
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. ~ Henry A. Kissinger
Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. ~ Maya Angelou
It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years. ~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. ~ Abba Eban
We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no alternative. ~ Golda Meir
Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict – alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence. ~ Dorothy Thompson
When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn’t think about, that doesn’t exist. ~ Shimon Peres
The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimize that action. ~ Zadie Smith
Be careful: they have arms, and no alternatives. ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski
If observed facts of undoubted accuracy will not fit any of the alternatives it leaves open, the system itself is in need of reconstruction. ~ Talcott Parsons
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. ~ Winston Churchill
Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative. ~ Henry A. Kissinger
The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue. ~ Emma Goldman
In prehistoric times, mankind often had only two choices in crisis situations: fight or flee. In modern times, humor offers us a third alternative; fight, flee – or laugh. ~ Robert Orben
A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant. ~ Manfred Eigen
In this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. There are as many varieties of conduct and opinion as there are turns of feature between an aquiline nose and a flat one. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Knowledge is not a series of self-consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth. ~ Paul Feyerabend
It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Free Will does not say that everything that is physically conceivable is also morally possible. It merely says that of alternatives that really tempt our will more than one is really possible. ~ William James
Just Above Sunset 